The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent government agency that provides mail delivery and other services to the public. The USPS is widely recognized as a safe and reliable means for sending and receiving physical mail and other items. The USPS also provides electronic mail service. With the advent and steady growth of electronic mail (e-mail) and electronic commerce, e-mail recipients may be constantly bombarded with increasing numbers of electronic messages.
Once an e-mail recipient's address is disclosed, it is possible for the recipient to receive large number of unwanted electronic messages, such as solicitations for all types of e-commerce products. The e-mail recipient's e-mail address may be disclosed by an Internet service provider or by any third party to which the e-mail recipient has sent an electronic message. to decide whether to delete or save the electronic messages once they are received. This tedious process leads to cluttered electronic mailboxes and a resulting loss of time for the e-mail recipient, as the recipient attempts to manage the e-mails within the electronic mailbox. Other existing methods are similarly undesirable.
Thus, there remains a need for efficiently identifying e-mail messages before they are delivered to an e-mail recipient's electronic mailbox, thereby eliminating the clutter of unwanted e-mail messages and the lost of time managing the e-mail messages within the electronic mailbox.